Kelsey Waldrop: Strategic Executive Coaching Driving Career Growth with Insights from Billion Dollar Transformations

Kelsey Waldrop
Kelsey Waldrop

The fiercely competitive job market, coupled with the dynamic changes brought about by recent AI developments, has brought immense opportunity for growth as well as significant challenges for career-minded professionals and job seekers. Many individuals seeking guidance and a competitive career advantage are investing in career coaches with strategic expertise. Individuals who are just starting and those seeking career accelerators or making significant career pivots are increasingly turning to experts who can help them differentiate and create longer-term strategies for their careers and lives.

These experts provide tailored guidance by leveraging their deep understanding of industry trends, networking opportunities and personal branding strategies. Combined with coaching skills and expertise, career coaches with strategic talent are helping individuals reach their highest potential by focusing on the critical intersections of personal beliefs and proactive action. By collaborating with a career strategist, professionals can unlock their full potential, make informed decisions, and achieve a harmonious blend of success and satisfaction in both their careers and personal lives.

Kelsey Waldrop, a Career Strategist, Executive Coach, Podcast Host, and Motivational Speaker, helps individuals confidently make bold and brave moves in their careers by empowering them to make informed and confident decisions. Developing deep and trust-based relationships with her clients, she aligns individual career goals and aspirations with the strategies, support and action plans they need to succeed. Kelsey serves as a crucial partner and strategic advisor in helping her clients achieve long-term sustainable success and fulfillment.

The Art & Science of Personal Transformation

With a background in strategy and innovation, Kelsey has curated a unique and in-depth understanding and expertise in Fortune 500 large-scale transformation insights and knowledge. Combined with the expertise and experience she has cultivated over a 15-year career coaching journey, Kelsey has already helped to elevate and innovate the career paths of over 500 executives from around the world.

Graduating from Purdue University in 2001 with a degree in Global Economics, alongside minors in International Business and Psychology, Kelsey embarked on a distinguished 20-year tenure career at Accenture, one of the world’s leading strategy consulting firms. Throughout this periodshe partnered with clients and leaders, guiding them through their largest and most significant transformations and change initiatives.

It was also during this time that Kelsey became deeply passionate and sought to discover the answer to one question, “What do organizations and individuals that succeed in creating change and transformation do differently than those that struggle or fail?”

Now, as a Certified Executive Coach, Kelsey leverages this unique blend of strategic insight and practical executive coaching experience to empower individuals embarking upon personal and professional transformation and change. Her “action to aspiration” approach ensures that individuals achieve their growth and transformation goals with precision and confidence while offering a personalized and results-driven coaching experience.

Laid-Off to Life-On

In March 2023, Kelsey faced her own significant career transition after being laid off from the global consulting company to which she had dedicated 22 years. An experience she refers to as the “missing credential” in her career coaching portfolio.

This period proved challenging, yet as a dedicated career coach specializing in guiding individuals through both planned and unexpected career shifts, she recognized an opportunity to apply and share her expertise as a way to help others in similar situations. Kelsey decided to launch the #LaidOff.LifeOn! Podcast as a platform to provide coaching insights, ideas and advice—typically accessible only through one-on-one sessions—to a wider audience.

By openly sharing her expert advice in conjunction with her personal life experiences and transformational journeys, Kelsey views the podcast as an opportunity to serve the community, foster a sense of connection, and to provide valuable guidance during times of transition.

Raising Awareness

As a podcast host, Kelsey enjoys sharing her insights and ideas on career transitions and personal transformation. She delights in the opportunity to share the mic with friends, industry experts and book authors who offer expertise and insights that empower listeners during times of transition and change.

Kelsey is also intimately aware of the profound darkness that unexpected life transitions can bring. Recognizing September as Suicide Awareness Month and feeling a strong sense of responsibility as a podcast host, she knew it was crucial to address the topic of suicide.

In 2000, Kevin Hines survived a suicide attempt by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, a miraculous outcome partly attributed to a sea lion that kept him afloat until rescue. As one of the less than 1% who have survived such falls, he has since become a prominent advocate for mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Having researched Kevin’s story and work, she bravely reached out to Kevin, inviting him to be a guest on the podcast to discuss these challenging issues. Kevin responded positively, agreeing to participate.

The resulting episode, “Finding Hope: A Journey from the Golden Gate Bridge with Kevin Hines,” aired on the “Laid Off LifeOn” podcast as Season One Episode Eleven and proved to be a profoundly impactful interview for Kelsey. It marked a significant growth moment, highlighting the benefits of stepping outside her comfort zone, the strength in overcoming fears to ask for help, and the gift of discussing important yet uncomfortable topics that many avoid yet many need to hear.

Mastering Critical Decision Points

Navigating critical decision points is an important yet daunting challenge most executives face in their careers. Committed to empowering people with confidence and certainty when making decisions, Kelsey developed her proprietary coaching model ‘TUV Love,’ as a framework to delve more deeply into the fundamental drivers of an executive’s professional aspirations and to bring forth the unique skills and strengths that are at the essence of every successful executive career acceleration.

The TUV Love model challenges executives to dig deeper than surface-level choices. It explores three key dimensions: Talent (T)—identifying unique strengths and passions; Urgency (U)—understanding motivations and external constraints as well as opportunities; and Values (V)—aligning decisions with core beliefs. This thorough approach ensures executives make choices that truly resonate with their career aspirations and core values, inspiring and motivating them to reach beyond their comfort zone and take purposeful action towards meeting their goals and achieving their aspirations.

The acronym ‘Love‘ reflects Kelsey’s passion, dedication and style when helping her clients achieve significant breakthroughs and new ways of thinking. By challenging entrenched beliefs and asking probing questions that remove the barriers to personal and professional growth, clients achieve a new level of clarity, which often reveals unexplored alternatives and opportunities to reframe familiar choices in a new context. Furthermore, it lays a robust foundation of self-awareness and strategic acumen that continues to benefit executives long after the immediate decision-making process.

A Framework for Personal Transformation

During her 2009 ICF Executive Coach training, Kelsey had a revelation. She realized that Fortune 500 companies were paying global consulting firms millions to address the same challenge her coaching clients faced: “How do I create rapid, meaningful, and lasting change?”

Today, Kelsey distinguishes herself amidst the vast landscape of over 100,000 career coaches on LinkedIn by offering access and insight into the practical tools and strategies the largest organizations in the world implement as best-in-class for achieving and sustaining organizational change and transformation, in conjunction with an “all-in” approach to coaching, to serve individuals seeking change and transformation in their own lives and careers

Kelsey emphasizes that every personal transformation begins with a meticulous assessment of an individual’s current satisfaction and level of fulfillment across all dimensions of their life and the formulation of a clear vision for success—a principle derived from her extensive corporate background. She underscores the critical importance of having a compelling and vivid vision, highlighting that it provides purpose, intent and direction for actions and plans. Drawing parallels to corporate practices, she notes that large-scale transformations in business always entail a structured yet simple “plan on a page” which includes defined milestones to gauge progress effectively, including early identification of obstacles to success and the proactive development of solutions to meet each challenge

Alignment of key stakeholders with the vision and proactive identification of supporting resources are other critical success factors that Kelsey has taken from corporate change strategies and integrated into her individual transition coaching methodology.

These principles—refined through her corporate tenure—form the cornerstone of Kelsey’s approach to adapting corporate-level strategies for personal transformation and career transitions.

The Power of Acknowledging Emotions

While much of Kelsey’s career strategy is grounded in corporate playbooks, as a mother of two young children, she has also added a unique twist to her methodologies. Drawing on the benefits of simplification and powerful inspiration that can be found in children’s books, Kelsey often weaves their timeless and easy to understand messages into her coaching approach and leverages their straight-forward strategies, which are as imaginative and insightful as they are practical. “Can’t Go Over It, Can’t Go Under It, Have To Go Through It,” from the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ This is just one of the notable quotes from familiar stories she frequently uses with clients facing unplanned transitions or unanticipated change.

This phrase powerfully portrays that the challenges, which are often accompanied by feelings of loss, anger and fear cannot be avoided or bypassed; and that acceptance and new opportunities come faster when setbacks are faced head-on. Kelsey emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and processing these emotions as an integral part of authentically navigating difficult experiences and fostering resilience and growth.

Through her coaching, clients come to understand that setbacks offer opportunities not only to overcome the obstacle in front of them today but are also ‘set-ups’ for new opportunities and incredible personal transformation that are only revealed and made possible by the valuable insights, knowledge and inspiration acquired during the difficult process. She expresses that although circumstances may be beyond one’s control, individuals have the power to choose their responses and can learn how to emerge from challenges stronger and more resilient.

Perspectives for Achieving Ambitious Visions

One of Kelsey’s greatest joys as a coach is guiding clients towards the transformative realization that they can cultivate a life encompassing both personal fulfillment and professional success. She shares, “It’s not a matter of choosing between the two but rather of devising a strategy that enhances both aspects harmoniously.”

For Kelsey, coaching entails empowering clients to fundamentally shift their perspective on what’s achievable and then assisting them in actualizing their most ambitious visions—both personally and professionally. Her ultimate objective is for clients to not only embrace but also surpass their initial ambitions, creating careers, lives and relationships of their design and desire.

While this may sound like a cliché, Kelsey’s clients attest to experiencing abundance across almost every dimension of their lives. Many express a wish that they had discovered this potential earlier, underscoring the profound impact of her coaching approach.

Significance of ICF Certification in Coaching

Hiring a coach with an ICF certification holds significant importance for anyone seeking coaching services.

For Kelsey, attaining the ICF Professional Coaching Certification credential—which includes over 350 hours of rigorous training and a minimum of 100 verified coaching hours—transcended mere academic and practical requirements. It was a personal journey that underscored the profound impact of coaching through first-hand experience. Having navigated her own transformative experiences like those she now guides clients through, Kelsey embodies not only the role of a coach but also serves as a living testament to the efficacy of the coaching process.

Empowering Courageous Individuals

Kelsey’s primary goal is to empower courageous individuals to craft exceptional careers and lives through personalized one-on-one coaching. In addition to individual coaching, she offers several group coaching programs for those seeking to achieve professional breakthroughs through high-impact career coaching in a group setting.

Excitement abounds as Kelsey announces the upcoming release of her debut book, “LaidOff.LifeOn! A Journey of transformation and growth.” Additionally, she eagerly anticipates sharing powerful insights and inspiration through her “TUV LOVE Transformation” talk at upcoming conferences and speaking events.

Above all, Kelsey aims to be a living testament to the potential within everyone to surpass their initial ambitions, creating fulfilling careers, lives and relationships of their design and desire. Which for her includes embracing a life filled with service, sharing adventures with her husband and children, reclaiming her position on the USTA tennis ranking list, and indulging in a lifelong passion for understanding and positively influencing human behavior.

To learn more and register for upcoming group coaching sessions, stay updated on the book’s release, or inquire about one-on-one coaching services, you can visit Kelsey’s website.